De Bosboerderij

We believe that for a resilient food system, nature and agriculture must come together. Therefore we need an agricultural method which fully restores soil and landscapes. Syntropic agriculture is one such method, and is based on a combination of techniques to speed-up ecosystem recovery. Syntropic agriculture is more than 'Nature-inclusive' farming and focusses on restoring nature (soil, biodiversity and ecosystems). Humans play a crucial role in this recovery: they plant, prune, weed, pick and harvest. It is a complex agroforestry system based on succession and active management. In such a system, many consumed (annual) crops, such as tomatoes, pumpkins and lettuce, play a role. But perennial crops, shrubs and trees with economic and ecological functions are also important. Plants are planted close to eachother, which ensures a biodiverse, resilient, robust and natural production system. Syntropic agriculture is very knowledge and labour-intensive and has not yet been commercially tested in the Netherlands. Because syntropic agriculture has so much potential - in terms of ecology, health and social connection - de BosBoerderij (*the Forest Farm* in Dutch) will set up various syntropic farms in the coming years. We test economic models of different farm designs in practice. We are farmers ourselves and manage the plots. We connect with the existing (international) community of experts, conduct research and train future syntropic farmers. We do this through collaboration and by offering (partly paid) apprenticeships, so that people can really learn syntropic agriculture by working in the field. We harvest products that have been grown in a nature-restorative way. In this way we offer locally produced sustainable ingredients for small and medium-sized food companies in the Netherlands.